{"id":796,"date":"2005-03-29T11:52:11","date_gmt":"2005-03-29T15:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=796"},"modified":"2005-03-29T11:54:33","modified_gmt":"2005-03-29T15:54:33","slug":"human-non-person-terri-schiavo-bioethics-and-our-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/2005\/03\/human-non-person-terri-schiavo-bioethics-and-our-future\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Human Non-Person&#8221; &#8212;  Terri Schiavo, bioethics, and our future."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/smithw\/smith200503290755.asp\">National Review Online<\/a>  Wesley J. Smith <\/p>\n<p>My <a href=\"http:\/\/www.courttv.com\/talk\/chat_transcripts\/2005\/0324schiavo-debate.html\">debate about Terri Schiavo&#8217;s case<\/a> with Florida bioethicist Bill Allen on Court TV Online eventually got down to the nitty-gritty: <\/p>\n<p>Wesley Smith: Bill, do you think Terri is a person? <\/p>\n<p>Bill Allen: No, I do not. I think having awareness is an essential criterion for personhood. Even minimal awareness would support some criterion of personhood, but I don&#8217;t think complete absence of awareness does.<\/p>\n<p>If you want to know how it became acceptable to remove tube-supplied food and water from people with profound cognitive disabilities, this exchange brings you to the nub of the Schiavo case &#8212; the &#8220;first principle,&#8221; if you will. Bluntly stated, most bioethicists do not believe that membership in the human species accords any of us intrinsic moral worth. Rather, what matters is whether &#8220;a being&#8221; or &#8220;an organism,&#8221; or even a machine, is a &#8220;person,&#8221; a status achieved by having sufficient cognitive capacities. Those who don&#8217;t measure up are denigrated as &#8220;non-persons.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>Allen&#8217;s perspective is in fact relatively conservative within the mainstream bioethics movement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>National Review Online Wesley J. Smith My debate about Terri Schiavo&#8217;s case with Florida bioethicist Bill Allen on Court TV Online eventually got down to the nitty-gritty: Wesley Smith: Bill, do you think Terri is a person? Bill Allen: No, I do not. I think having awareness is an essential criterion for personhood. Even minimal &#8230; <a title=\"&#8220;Human Non-Person&#8221; &#8212;  Terri Schiavo, bioethics, and our future.\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/2005\/03\/human-non-person-terri-schiavo-bioethics-and-our-future\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about &#8220;Human Non-Person&#8221; &#8212;  Terri Schiavo, bioethics, and our future.\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1319,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sanctity-of-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1319"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}